Campaign Mastery

Preface to Part 2, by Mike This is the second half of Ian’s article on Vehicles. The first half concentrated on the PCs acquiring a vehicle; this half is all about using one. I’ve also tossed in my two-cents worth here and there with the occasional aside and also jumped in with a few small […]

Preface, by Mike Today, I’m providing the first half of a guest article by my long-time friend, Ian Mackinder. Ian’s been nuancing this article for quite some time, and that shows in its depth. Part one deals with acquiring and designing vehicles, part two with using and abusing them. I’ve also tossed in my two-cents […]

I’ve been asked a number of times what advice I have for a beginning GM. This 15-part series is an attempt to answer that question – while throwing in some tips and reminders of the basics for more experienced GMs. This will probably be the last in the series for a little while, I don’t […]

I’ve been asked on more than one occasion what advice I would have for a beginning GM. It’s a question that troubled me; I’ve been GMing for so long that I thought I might have lost contact with the beginner. I have also resisted the topic because Campaign Mastery is more targeted at experienced GMs. […]

Introduction A little while back, I was asked by someone what advice I would have for someone’s first attempt at being a Gamesmaster. Now, that subject takes in an awful lot of ground, but when I sat down and thought about it, I found that I had suggestions to offer – some simple, obvious things […]

From time to time, I post thoughts on various subjects to twitter using the hashtag “#Musing”. I did just that a little while back – and then thought some more about what I had written and realized there were game implications/applications. The tweet said, “Traditions become empty when the meaning behind them is forgotten. We […]

Hungry, over at Ravenous Roleplaying, is a long-time supporter of Campaign Mastery through his regular “Friday Faves” column, in which he collects links to the articles that have most inspired or interested him from the past week. When he has time, he accompanies those links with some comments; these are always interesting, and sometimes genuinely […]

Having just finished the “New Beginnings” series only a few weeks ago, I had no intention of publishing another article on the subject of campaign design for quite a while. Plans changed… An Endless Vista All campaigns start on a blank sheet of paper, which presents an endless vista of possibilities. This is not all […]

Sorry for the delay in posting this – my ISP is conducting maintenance of some sort, and my connection kept dropping out, making it hard to upload and format the article in the usual manner. Combinations So far, I’ve been looking at the different elements of pauses-in-play in as much isolation as possible, going beyond […]

It happens in virtually every campaign. The longer the game runs, the more overprotective of their characters the players become. They become more and more attached to the characters and more adverse to exposing them to serious risk. The GM, on the other hand, wants to continually raise the stakes and up the ante, in […]

In part one of this series, I demonstrated that a pause or interruption in play can be enormously beneficial, if used correctly. Last week’s article examined before-pause and after-pause content and found that these had to match in order to extract that benefit, and that the type and length of pause was a critical variable […]

It’s not easy making a completely fresh start. This series has examined the process of creating a new campaign in detail, and at last, the new campaign is ready for the curtain to lift and the show to begin – right? Right? This isn’t the first time it has seemed that way since this series […]